1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a video theater system for projecting a movies film by tele-cinematizing it and by receiving a signal reproduced from a videocassette for VCR or via a satellite.
2. Description of the Prior Art
While there were approximately 7,500 movie theaters in Japan during the late 1960s, improvements in and greater access to color televisions in the home started to intrude on the theater-going movie audience. With the development of video tape recorders and the introduction of rental videos, this erosion of the movie industry continued, and in 1989 the number of theaters in Japan had fallen to 1,912.
In the United States, however, the introduction of more efficient theater equipment and the development of new cinema complexes with several theaters grouped together have increased the number of theaters from 20,000 to 24,000 over the last several years while also increasing gross income.
In an attempt to halt the erosion of the industry in Japan, theaters have taken steps to improve operating efficiency, improve the quality of the seats, and construct new mini-theaters, among other measures, but with no noticeable effect.
While the movie industry has been confronted with a deteriorating situation, new video theaters which project videos instead of movie films have sprung up in many cities. These video theaters are typically installed in supermarkets, department stores, and similar retail outlets as an extension of the distribution industry rather than as independent movies theaters. They are also typically small with seating for about one hundred people, and are fully automated.
The video tapes distributed for use in these video theaters are typically manufactured, duplicated, and played back by a process such as shown in FIG. 7. The movie film 1 is first converted to a video tape using a telecinematizing device or video converter 2. The video converter 2 effects a photoelectric conversion and then a color correction to improve color reproducibility. A digital video cassette recorder (VCR) 3 records the converted video signal on a video tape to provide the master video tape 4. A plurality of tapes 7 for distribution to video theaters are then produced from the master video tape 4 using an M2-format VCR 6 such as the model AU-650 VCR available from Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation of Japan. These distribution tapes 7 are used for movie projection in the video theaters. The theaters use plural M2-format playback VCRs 8 and a selector 9 to choose the output video. The selected video signal is then inputted to an ED/WD digital scan converter 10 for signal compression, and then projected by the projector 11.
As described above, the distribution tapes used in the video theaters are converted from the movie film to produce the master tape which is then dubbed to produce the distribution tapes for distribution to the individual video theaters.
Once these tapes pass to the video theaters, how they are used can only be controlled by each theater, making it easy to produce illegal copies with an adverse effect on the video rental industry. In addition, while there are some video tapes with copy protection applied, most of these are simple schemes with a slight modification of the horizontal synchronization signal in the video signal, leaving the video signal itself unprotected and making the copy preventive scheme relatively easy to break.
Also, with a wide-spread of the video theaters, the distribution tapes must be prepared in a number corresponding to or in excess of the number of the video theaters, forcing a video tape distributor to supervise an increased number of the distribution tapes while incurring an increased cost necessary to project the video image at a remote place.